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As Carly Simon sang, "That's the way I've always heard it should be" ... and the way I've always done my show.

So was it a diva singer or have I been doing it wrong all these years?

The singer got there while I was still setting up. He told me he hadn't been to my venue for awhile and wondered what happened to the old host. I welcomed him back and let him know the old host hadn't been there for six months; I've been there about 3. He brought his own folder of CD+Gs and was anxious to sign up. I handed him some song slips and finished setting up.

He was able to sing 3 songs before the crunch was on and the crowds kicked in. He came up with another slip asking to replace the one he'd already given me. This one was a duet. As I've always done, his duet replaced his previous solo song, as well as the solo slip his partner had turned in, and they went to the back of the next rotation.

I assumed since this singer had come early and with his own library, he was an experienced singer and knew that rotation is based on stage time. Which means you don't sing a duet and then 5 songs later when your other solo tune comes up you sing that too. I usually announce this several times during my show as well as my "Sing 1, Bring 1" spiel about bringing up multiple slips.

A couple of minutes later, this singer comes up and said, "I heard what you said about stage time...you're the only host I've ever seen who does this!"

As it's not unusual for my rotation to be 20-30 songs in the heart of the evening, I explained it's not fair to the others who hadn't even sung ONE song for another singer to be on stage with a partner, then by himself.

Am I looney? Doesn't everyone run their rotation based on stage time? (BTW, I heard later from the bartender this guy was a real pain!)

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I've wrestled with duets and how to handle them ever since I started doing this host thing. I don't know if there is a perfect way, but the way I do it now is somewhat different than yours and based on my room.

We're out over an hour a lot and there are several who have figured out that if they buddy up with someone they can sing more. So if Danyell lets Jillian with her on her turn and Jillian reciprocates on hers, I let them. That's because everyone else is still singing in the same spot as they would if both women sang solo.

Also, because the room is young, there are always new singers who ask for assistance from the regulars. And I want to encourage new singers. So when this happens I usually don't count it against the regular. However if it's a lot of help (and you guys know what I'm sayin') I have the regular wait until the whole room sings before their next turn. And that's just a gut call from me and all the regulars understand that.

If I had a seasoned room with a lot of experienced singers I might do it differently. So I guess that I'd have to say that I don't run my show like yours DangerousDan. What I'm doing is just based on doing the best with what I have though. I am curious how everyone else handles this. I'm still trying to figure out the ideal way.

I always count duets as both singers turn & Bills example is the perfect reason why I do & made that a rule. If Danyell lets Jillian sing with her on her turn then Jillian reciprocates this is a minipulation of the rotation to get up more. They more than likely have no intention of singing solo if it is a common occurance & both would be counted as one turn in our house. I don't care how they write it up, it is the same duet getting up twice before others.
I wouldn't worry about it, the singer may be used to really short rotations where pretty much anything can go including the duets and solos in the same round. Or he is just used to crappy hosts that play favorites & he happens to be one of them.

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Yes, I did it differently but in no way do I mean to imply that you might be doing it wrong.

I encouraged group singing. I could only get to around 72 songs a night but I might have four hundred bodies singing those seventy two songs. Four hand held mics and a large condenser (mostly just for show) so a whole bunch of folks could gather around and sing.

My rule for rotation was one name per slip and anyone that person wanted to invite along was fine. Sometimes I did play fast and loose with the rotation just to break things up but as a rule it regulated itself pretty well.

Zero divas and a lot of smiling faces.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I've seen it either as counting for both singers or for one of the singers - and been to a couple places that will change from counting for one singer to counting for both if the rotation gets heavy.

You're way makes total sense.

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"I hold the key to an open door....will I ever be free...?"

Yep, thats a tough one. Often groups of singers have a "ringer" singer if you will, who is frequently asked to join the other group members on their songs. I try to discourage this in the bars but have a lot more trouble with it at private parties and such. It can be a delicate dance to be fair-handed when you have a host and his/her friends (who have payed you) and feel entitled to hijack your list, singing at will - and the guests (who arent paying you), signing up and waiting their turn.

I guess thats why they pay us the big bucks.
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For duet, we credit it to the table that request it. It does not matter who the partner is. but then we run a diffrent kind of rotation here.

a duet is a turn for both people in my humble opinion. Otherwise one person gets up to sing twice, and very quickly, you can have SEVERAL duets and one person singing with more than another duet... it very quickly can escalate out of control.

Once I did that rule as a turn for both, yeah, I had my naysayers... and you know what, they all agreed they were trying to get more sing time. I said, "so you KNOW you're deliberately cheating the other singers of THEIR sing time?"

Their responses?? Almost all of them went "Yeah? So???"

I have been to shows where the "Duet Rule" varies. I don't think there's a Right Way or a Wrong Way to do this.... AS LONG AS YOU ARE CONSISTANT. Some do it where the duet counts as the 1st person's turn, and the other person still gets his/her turn in the Rotation. Others do it where it counts as everyone's turn on stage. I do it the former way. My logic is, it takes just as long for 1 person to sing a 5 minute song as it does for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 people to sing that same song. If I see that one couple is getting up too frequently, then I'll tell them that I can't keep letting them get up like that, and they are going to have to pick a Solo song to sing.

Now, me personally, I like to sing the occasional Duet. Would you consider it that I'm taking advantage of your show, if I'm visiting from out of town, and I scoped out someone at your show that I felt might be able to hold their own with me, and wanted to ask that person to sing something like "Suddenly Seymour" or "Music of the Night" or "Last Night of the World?" These are songs that I'm sure you very rarely get to hear at a Karaoke show (I like my Broadway stuff). I feel that it's not fair that that person should have to sacrifice her turn in the rotation because I (a total stranger) asked her to sing something with me on my turn. Mind you, the shoe has been on the other foot with me on several occasions, and I didn't like it

At both my shows, I get a LOT of duet slips. I've never really had an easy time figuring out how to approach them, because I want to keep everybody happy, but I'm the host and even I get sick of seeing the same people up more than once a round.

The only hard and fast rule I have is if someone turned in a solo slip in round one, and also turns up on a duet slip, the duet slip doesn't get done, even if the other person on it doesn't get to sing that round. I don't know why, but it really hacks me off if I'm at a show and see someone up twice in a round before I get up my first time, so I adopted that rule. Everybody sings once the first round, period.

Generally, though, I try to make duets count for one person's turn in a round. There are situations where I bend that a bit, but I try not to do it often. No one has ever complained, though, so I'm either doing okay with it or my regulars hide their disgust very well.

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hi-voxentertainment

As a singer, I don't like it when other people get to sing more than one time in a rotation, even if they're only joining someone else's song and therefore theoretically not adding songs to the rotation. The rotation would still be shorter if the A+B duet is the only one A or B gets to sing, as opposed to A's solo and then A+B's duet.

But then that may be because I never sing duets!

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Reward: nine yen in drawer.

When you break it down ... a duet is only 1/2 a song each ! -
If two differant people sang 2 songs it would be about 9 mins of "stage time" as you call it. It's the same if a couple sang 2 duets ?...... It's just a PERCEPTION from the whiney singers that someone is singing more than them ! --but in reality they are NOT. There are SONGS 'duets" made to be sung by 2 people why should each of them be penalized for singing that particuliar song. A duet should count for 1 turn in the rotation for one of the partners - so in theory they should be able to sing two duets in 1 rotation --NOT 1 DUET AND TWO SINGLE SONGS

JUST PLAYING ADVOCATE

Awww duets - With me a duet must go on one persons turn. I get very few duets though. Most people don't like giving up their turn for a duet. When I explain it goes on one persons turn they usually say save it for later and it never happens.

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A true duet song for my shows is not the problem...its the people who feek the NEED to sing with everyone else weather invited or not so it seems like they are singing every song

My problem is that I have several regulars who will bring up 6 or 7 solo slips at the beginning of the night, knowing full well they'll get to sing maybe 5 times tops. Then, throughout the night, they'll bring up 3 or 4 more as they find other stuff they want to do, and also 3 to 5 duet slips. So, I'm getting as many as 15 slips for some of my regulars. They'll occasionally say, "Are you going to get me and so and so up for Love in an Elevator soon?" Well, no, I'm not. You've got all these slips up here, plus you've got this duet over here with a person who hasn't sung yet, so that gets priority, etc. ad infinitum. Certain regulars are popular and EVERYBODY wants to duet with them. It gets to be too much sometimes. Okay, pretty much every time.

I love my regulars, but they drive me nuts sometimes. It's an incredible waste of slips to bring me 15 slips throughout the night, knowing you'll get to sing maybe half of those at best. I've found a way around this. Sort of.

I'm redoing my books right now, which should be done next week, then I'm going to post the book on my website along with my slips, so they can print them out and bring them with them to the show. I know, it's not innovative or anything, but it's something I've been meaning to do for a while, and it's finally time to get on it.

Don't get me started on people playing pencil break with my pencils...

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hi-voxentertainment

My headache is those nights that a big group comes in and they put in multiple slpis with 3, 4 or more names on each. I try to make sure no one sings more than twice by themselves or with a group. It gets hard when one guys name is on every group sing with different people. I can't have him sing every song.

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Exactly. I get a LOT of that. It's a delicate balance trying to get everybody up without one or two people up there every other song.

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hi-voxentertainment

I had 1 show that I used to host, where it was the exception to and not the rule. This show ended up getting run more like a private party as versus a regular show. At this particular place (it was a college crowd), it seemed to be that even if there was only 1 name on the song slip, just about everyone (from those that were singing in the rotation) would run up stage and sing along. Of course, I ALWAYS monitored to make sure that the Singer on stage did not object to others joining in. If I saw (or sensed) that the person on stage would be upset over this, I would not allow others up there.

I set up my shows to be duet- and group-friendly. I explain it on the book covers.
Duets count as one person's turn, the first name listed on the song slip. You can put down as many names as you want, but it counts as the first person's turn.
A singer must be named on the slip to sing in a group -- no running up and "helping out." I announce the turn as "It's Joe's turn, and he has Mary, Don and Tom helping him out."
My regulars like duets and group songs -- and I didn't feel it was right for an inexperienced singer to ask someone to help them out, and then have the helper "penalized" by losing a turn.
I have four mikes hot and can heat up two more if needed.
I think the key is that my set-up is explained at the start, and I stick to it.

I find this issue can be very show-specific. If, for example, a big group of new people walks in (this used to happen at a previous gig as it was in a casino) and they weren't really karaoke singers but had somehow gotten brave enough to finally sing, they'd all come up and sing together. I'd make sure that that group only sang once in the rotation. On the other hand, if it's a slow night, sometimes I'd piggy back singers - one of the duet singers would sing solo, then the duet partner would join them for their duet, then the first singer would sit down and the second duet partner would sing solo. Nobody ever minded that (I specifically asked) - but again, if it's a HUGE rotation, I'd never consider doing that. The easiest thing to do about duets, I've found, is to give them a separate spot in the rotation. They'll wait just like everyone else. Not taking up anyone else's time.

Responses to many of the questions posted here are very show specific - not just regional (which it would appear a lot of these things are). I've been hosting since the mid '90s and one of the benefits of having done that is you are aware of almost all of the situations that can arise. For example, if you see a group, like that above, who may have such a good time that they'll make that location a regular place to hang out, you bet they'll be pampered (not with rotation but with attention). In these 'times' it's important to take care of not only your regulars, but any potential new individuals or crowds.

I think the main thing is that you keep the rotation moving - if people feel like the show is moving along, and it doesn't take an hour and a half for them to get up and sing, they'll be more tolerant. I know for some of you with HUGE rotations, it can't be avoided. It becomes a lot trickier to keep the natives from getting restless.

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